Portal Cubed
by Insane Guy of DOOM
Summary: Several months after her release, Chell is thrust back into the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. This time however she's not a test subject, but an ally of GLaDOS against an even greater threat, and a lot more than science is a stake...
1. The Rude Awakening, Part I

Alright, for those who did not see the original version: This story is meant to be an attempt at creating a hopefully realistic example of what Portal 3 might be. Due to this, there will be nine "chapters" just like the game. But due to the length of a Portal 2 chapter compared to a fanfic chapter, the nine true chapters will be split into several parts. So, without further ado:

Portal Cubed

Chapter 1: The Rude Awakening, Part I

Darkness. How uncomfortable this old mattress was. Grogginess. These were the feelings running through Chell's mind as she slowly woke up. There was some sort of noise penetrating her half-asleep haze, but at this point she couldn't decipher it. Slowly but surely, Chell forced her eyes open and glanced around at the depilated apartment she'd made her home for the past few months. The wallpaper was peeling in almost every area, her mattress had been scavenged from a garbage dump, her companion cube had somehow fired a blue portal onto the wall... Wait. What?

Chell immediately sat up, fully awake. She then noticed something was sitting in her lap, and looked down at the object.

"Brilliant, you're awake!" Wheatley raised his lower optic shutter to mimic a human smile. "Listen, I am _so_ sorry about what happened before. I was monstrous, and evil, and I am truly sorry..." While Wheatley continued to ramble out apology after apology, Chell leapt off the bed and started looking around in absolute shock.

"I don't know what came over me! Just, I had to test, and then you stopped doing them right! I just got so angry..." How in the heck was Wheatley not in space, and more importantly what was that portal doing in her room? Chell leaned to her left to look inside the portal and her heart dropped. "I'm sorry about the testing, and the cubes, and the part where I tried to kill you..." Inside was the unmistakable sight of the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center.

Chell turned away from the portal and haplessly paced around the apartment. Surely there was something here that would show this to be just a bad dream. Nothing seemed out of place besides Wheatley and the portal. Next Chell shut her eyes and mentally counted to ten. When she opened them, everything would be back to normal, in theory. However she couldn't get past one, as Wheatley continued babbling.

"Oh, and I'm really sorry about calling you 'fatty-fatty-no-parents'. That was low, even for me..." Chell could no longer deny what has happening. She had escaped Aperture, and now it had found her again.

"Are you even listening? Here I am, spilling my heart out, and _you don't even care do you_!" Wheatley yelled, snapping Chell out of her shock at all that was occurring. Chell turned her attention back the personality core. She was excellent at murder, but also forgiveness; not immediately smashing "PotatOS" but willing to hear the AI out spoke volumes in that regard. Indeed, Chell had noticed the connection between Wheatley being plugged in the mainframe turning evil, and GLaDOS being removed and turning less-psychopathic.

Her decision made, Chell gently placed her hand atop Wheatley's spherical body and smiled at him. "Y-you forgive me?" She nodded and Wheatley's optic seemed to glow even brighter than normal with joy. "Thank you! Thank you so much. I promise I will never, ever, hurt you or let anything bad happen to you ever again!" Wheatley paused for a moment, and Chell could tell that something bad was coming next. "Well, forget the nothing bad happening to you part. That's part of why I'm here actually."

"Now you're probably wondering 'Wheatley, how'd you get out of space?' or 'Why's there a portal on the wall over there?'. It's actually a pretty riveting story, but way too long. We have to go _now_." Wheatley turned to face the portal on the wall. "So just jump on through that portal there, and I'll explain everything once we have time." Chell stared at the sphere as if he was a madman. "Seriously, go in there. Something very, very, very bad has happened and you're probably the only person who can fix it."

Chell crossed her arms at Wheatley and glared at him. Did he really think that she'd go back to Aperture, _willingly_, in her lifetime? "C'mon, it's really bad! Trust me we need you back. Wait, you're probably not too willing to trust me after everything, uh, so... just... forget that last part and go through the portal." Chell didn't budge. "Please, luv. You have to go! It's the most important thing that has ever happened ever... FOREVER!" When she still showed no signs of moving Wheatley lowered his optic in the saddest looking way possible for a robot without any real face.

"I'm so sorry, but you really have to come back. Please don't hate me again." Chell didn't have to wonder what Wheatley was talking about for long, as a spindly creature emerged from the portal. It had a purple eyed personality core for a 'head', with a thin metallic body underneath.

"Please assume the party escort submission position." The Party Escort Bot bashed Chell over the head with its surprisingly strong fist, and everything went black.

Chell woke with a splitting headache in a featureless white room, made up of familiar looking panels. She looked down and noticed that once more she was wearing an Aperture Science jumpsuit and long fall boots. In front of her lay a handheld portal device, she slowly reached out and grabbed it. Grasping the portal gun, Chell stood up and was rather disturbed to think about how right and at home this made her feel.

Directly above her one panel retracted and Wheatley descended from it. "Again, really sorry about that. I promise I'll explain everything soon. But first, you need to do some tests. Just simple ones, a formality really. We need to make sure you still remember how to think with portals and to make sure didn't get any more brain damage from the escort bot."

Chell surveyed this first test and saw nothing except an open door leading to an elevator. She nervously walked over to the door, expecting deadly neurotoxin or turrets, or some new horror to pop out and kill her, but nothing happened. Chell walked through the door, passed through the emancipation grill, and got into the lift with no fanfare.

"You know, She told me that the reason you can't talk is because one of those things emancipated your vocal cords. I don't know if She's telling the truth, and of course you're not going to answer me. But, food for thought." Wheatley said, presumably from the same type of intercom GLaDOS would use to communicate with her. The lift moved downward, stopping at a new test chamber.

"Alright, this one's gonna be a wee-bit trickier, so prepare yourself." Chell nearly face-palmed when she saw what Wheatley meant by 'trickier'. The room was exactly the same, except that now the door was closed, and a button was in the center of the room. Eager to get whatever was going on over with, she ran up to the button and pressed it. The door opened, as expected, and Chell went through and into the next lift.

"Just like the good old days, eh luv?" Chell frowned in response. "Not the _bad_ good old days, mind you. I mean the ones where we were friends. Best mates, on a grand adventure!" The lift finished its decent and Chell entered the next chamber.

This one had a small depression in the center, forcing Chell to use portals to get to the other side. Two tests in, and only now she had to use the portal gun. If GLaDOS was dead, she'd be rolling in her grave at this mockery of testing. Chell quickly shot a blue portal at the wall to her left and an orange portal across the depression. She stepped through and exited the room.

"Bravo! Bravo. I've gotta' be honest here, I did not think you'd be able to solve that. I mean the escort bot bloody knocked your lights out, I'm surprised you can even walk straight let alone fire a portal gun. Just look at the size of that welt! When this is over, I highly recommend that you get that checked." Chell rubbed the top of her head and found there was a massive bump there. She grimaced but decided there was nothing she could do about any potential head trauma now and might as well continue on testing.

Chell entered the next chamber hoping at least something interesting would be inside. Never had navigation through a demented facility while being forced to solve tests whose value to science was rather ambiguous been so _boring_."Now we're gonna' do a little refresher course on your old friends: cube and button based technology." Chell pinched the bridge of her nose; between the awful headache and awful-er tests her patience had worn thin. Whatever "super bad thing" Wheatley was talking about had better be catastrophic, or she'd replace forgiving him with using the personality core as a soccer ball.

Not even a single portal had to be used; she simply had to pick a cube with the portal gun's tractor beam, and place in on a button.

"So... How's the surface? From what I saw it doesn't seem all that good. Everything's all worn-down and shoddy... It almost looked like one of those abandoned test shafts. Were there even any other humans up here?" Chell stopped dead in her tracks at Wheatley's question. She wracked her brain, but couldn't seem to remember anything about her life post-Aperture. This was not good.

"Wot's wrong? You look like this core I used know when he would download too much information for his processors to handle. He'd spark and short out for a few minutes. You're not gonna short out are you? 'Cause that would be bad." Chell shook her head and made a mental note to look up the symptoms of a concussion if the opportunity presented itself. "Good. But, I think that's enough chatter for now. We've gotta get back to testing. She'll be mad if we don't finish soon."

_She_. Chell had nearly forgotten about GLaDOS in the past few chambers. Between her possible concussion, the boringly simple tests, and Wheatley's rambling she hadn't had time to wonder where Aperture's AI Goddess was in all this. She quickly placed the cube on the button and exited the test chamber.

"Just two more test chambers, then I can explain everything." The promise of an actual explanation for what had so far been the most annoying day in Chell's life spurred her forward and she sprinted into the next room. "WAIT! STOP!"

"Target acquired." Upon hearing those deceivingly cheerful words Chell instinctively dove for the ground as bullets sprayed through the space she'd just been in. A rush of adrenalin flooded through Chell's body and she couldn't help but grin. _This_ was a test.

"Yeah... this test has turrets in it. I probably should've mentioned that beforehand. But you're not dead, so it looks like you've got things figured out." Chell crawled back into the chamber's entryway, out of the turret's line of sight, and planned her next move. She cautiously peaked into the room and saw three turrets placed in a triangle formation and nothing else. Her adrenalin rush faded, it seemed that to solve this test all she had to was get to the door without being shot.

Chell aimed her portal gun beneath the nearest turret and fired, the placed a second portal on the ceiling above another. The first turret fell through the portal and onto its comrade with a satisfying crunch and both of them deactivated. She quickly repeated the portal-fall with the remaining turret. Chell stepped out into the now safe chamber and sighed, these 'tests' had managed to make freaking _turrets_ boring.

"You've done wonderful, luv. But it's time for the final test. A test more challenging, dangerous, and complex than any ever before it. A proper deathtrap if there ever was one. I hope you're prepared..." Chell rolled her eyes and tried to picture the 'deathtrap'. What could it be? Turrets AND a button maybe? How challenging! Chell boarded the lift and proceeded to her 'final test'.

She had become so used to these ridiculous attempts at 'challenges' that she didn't even bother looking at the test chamber's standard hazard warning sign. Had Chell done that she would likely have done a double-take. Chell turned a corner and blindly stepped forward, only for her foot to find no purchase. She fell forward and waved her arms frantically in an attempt to prevent herself from falling into what she now saw the chamber to be: a bottomless pit. Excursion funnels came from the wall, each with a turret inside, all of them promptly put their laser-sights on the test subject. The ceiling was made up entirely of mashey-spike plates, poised to reduce her, and everything else in the chamber, to paste.

Chell managed to regain her footing and step back from the edge just as the spike plates descended, crushing the turrets before they could fire at her. The crushers had destroyed the excursion funnels as well though, leaving Chell seemingly no way to get to the door at the other end of the room.

"I see you haven't lost your touch at being ridiculously hard to kill. Welcome back."


	2. The Rude Awakening, Part II

Portal Cubed

Chapter 2: The Rude Awakening, Part II

Chell expected to shiver at hearing GLaDOS' voice again, however she almost felt calmed by it. She decided to add Stockholm syndrome to the list of symptoms she would look up later when a new excursion funnel shot up from the floor. "Get inside. We have much to discuss."

Seeing no other option, Chell leapt into the excursion funnel and floated up above the test chamber. A second funnel, this one horizontal, intersected with the first one, once Chell had entered it the vertical funnel turned off and she continued forward. Something hit Chell in the back as she floated, she turned around and saw the object was none other than Wheatley.

"Now I can answer some of your questions. You see, She needs you back, and She figured I was the only one who could get you here willingly. So She plucked me out of space and sent me to fetch you, which didn't work all that well... But we had plan B: the escort bot... and well... here you are!" Chell glared at the core. If she wasn't so confused as to what was going on she'd likely retract her forgiveness of him. But for now, she'd give Wheatley the benefit of the doubt. At least until she found out what the 'very bad thing' was.

Several moments later the funnel ended at a solid wall, which parted to deposit Chell and Wheatley into the familiar location of GLaDOS' chamber. She stared up at the serpentine body of the Genetic Life-form and Disk Operation System, who despite a lack of facial features somehow seemed happy to see Chell again.

"I'm so glad you're back. That wasn't sarcasm by the way." GLaDOS said in the most sarcastic way possible. She leaned forward to look at Chell. "You look terrible. What have you been doing up there? Never mind, we have more important things to discuss."

"Several days ago I sent the cooperative testing initiative bots into the lower sections of the facility. As all other test subjects had perished in the Bird War, I was in desperate need of replacements." Chell had stopped listening after the mention of a 'Bird War', even without knowing what exactly had happened, it sounded hilarious and she almost missed not having been there to see it. GLaDOS narrowed her optic at the sight of Chell's barely contained mirth but continued on. "Stop looking at me like that. The Avian Insurrection was one of the greatest threats the enrichment center has ever faced."

"Continuing on, I had reason to believe there may be more frozen test subjects in the abandoned areas and sent Blue and Orange to find them. Unfortunately they only found some brain dead humans, obviously not capable of testing. I had them keep looking, and they did eventually find something: a prototype version of my chassis, complete with another AI inside. This other AI had been shut down for a very long time and those two idiots activated it without my permission."

"All I want is to stay here and do science, but this other AI is different. It wants to expand to the present enrichment center and the surface. So unless you want this thing ruling the world, I'd recommend you put aside whatever thoughts you might have of killing me." Chell nodded in agreement, she didn't particularly like the idea of another AI getting out of Aperture. Even the thought that GLaDOS was still out there had kept her up many a night once being freed.

"Somehow it convinced Blue and Orange to side with it, so now you're the only dangerous mute lunatic capable of stopping it. All you have to do is murder that AI and I'll send you back to the surface to do whatever it is you were doing up there." Surprisingly, this seemed like a fair deal. Chell would not have put it past GLaDOS to throw in some required testing while she was there. Then again, she hadn't bought the 'Caroline deleted' thing for a second, and that might account for something.

"Wot should I do? I want to help!" Wheatley piped up, having been forgotten by the other two in the discussion about this new enemy.

"Nothing. I gave you simple task that I believed you to be especially suited for, and you couldn't even do _that _right."

"Okay, so maybe I had to use plan B, but I did get her back! See, I'm not just some moron that can't do anything right, so wot can I do?" Wheatley retorted.

"You may leave now, before I decide to put you back in space." A pneumatic diversity vent descended from the ceiling and began to suck Wheatley up while he glared at Chell and GLaDOS.

"Fine! I'll show you I'm useful, I'll save the day all by myself!" Wheatley disappeared into the vent and was spirited off to parts unknown. GLaDOS hoped it was the incinerator, but she was too busy to make sure. The massive AI then turned her attention back to Chell. "Before you can confront the AI, I need you to do a few tests. I've developed some new testing apparatus which may help you kill it."

Chell just shrugged; at this point she wanted to get this over with. The same diversity vent which had sucked up Wheatley increased its suction power until Chell was pulled in as well. The vent sped her through the enrichment center, with turrets, storage cubes, test chambers and several unrecognizable objects flashing by. The vent spat her out into a test chamber and Chell landed with a thud, silently thanking whoever had invented long fall boots.

To her surprise, this chamber was even emptier than those before. There wasn't even a visible exit. Chell looked around, absolutely stumped on what she was supposed to do. "I started working on this right after you left, it's called 'F-Stop'." This elaboration didn't help Chell at all, so she just stared at one of GLaDOS' wall cameras in hopes of displaying her confusion.

GLaDOS refused to offer any further explanation, and Chell fingered the inside of her portal gun while deep in thought. Then she noticed something odd, the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device was supposed to have two triggers. One for blue portals, the other for orange, yet this one had three. Chell experimentally pulled the third trigger and a beam of black light shot out from the gun. Suddenly the colors of the world inverted. The portal gun had gone from white with black striping to black with white striping. The portal-able surfaces were now black, and she assumed non portal-able ones would similarly be white.

Strangest of all, a super-colliding super button, a weighted storage cube, and a door were now in the room. She picked up the cube with the portal gun's tractor beam and placed it on the button, causing the door to open. Chell walked through, but when she passed the emancipation grill it restored everything to its normal coloration. Odder still, the door she had come in through was now gone.

"F-Stop alters the way light affects objects within a certain radius around the portal device. It can be used to make objects which are invisible under normal circumstances visible." Chell smiled and nodded in approval. That actually was pretty cool.

The next chamber had a door, but no means of opening it. Chell activated F-Stop and saw two buttons which would need to be pressed to open the door. She walked over to one and pressed it, but then a timer began to count down. She raced over to the other but it was too late. Instead she fired a portal on the wall next to each button, pressed one, then ran through the portal to reach other. Once both were pressed, the standard blue trails leading to the door lit up orange, and the small boxes one each side of the door changed from "x"s to check marks.

But then Chell noticed something she had overlooked. Between the two checkmarks was nothing but an empty wall. The door was gone.

"Oh, did I forget to mention? Using F-Stop can also cause some items which are normally visible to become invisible." Getting it now, Chell deactivated F-Stop and the now open door reappeared. An extremely disturbing and contented moan filled the test chamber, much to Chell's surprise and disgust.

"Woooow-I mean... did you hear that? I don't know what it was, but it definitely wasn't a response to solution euphoria. Maybe a panel came loose somewhere or a turret exploded?" Chell frowned at the nearest wall-camera. "Alright, it's been _a__while_ since I've done any real testing. The wait may have lessened my tolerance to the solution euphoria... but that's now why your here! Continue testing."

At the next chamber, there was a cube but no button. A quick use of F-Stop made the button visible, but the cube invisible. This was more like it. If Chell had to test, at least these were approaching her skill level.

"From what I said earlier, you may have gotten the idea that I'm tricking you into testing again with a false story about a crazed AI that doesn't actually exist. In fact, that's _exactly_ the sort of thing I'd do. But this is serious." Something was odd about GLaDOS. Exactly what, Chell was unsure. Perhaps she was nervous about this "other AI", or maybe she really had tricked Chell. Either way, she'd find out soon enough.

Focusing her attention back on the test at hand, Chell began to ponder on how to solve it. She needed to get the cube onto the button; but could only see one of the two objects at a time. Inspiration struck, and Chell turned off the F-Stop function. She fired a portal above the button, then reactivated F-Stop and fired a second portal underneath the cube. The cube fell through the air and landed on the invisible button. Despite its being invisible, Chell could hear the button being pressed and the chamber's door opened. Luckily there were no mind-scarring-ly disturbing noises this time.

"In the event that you may still believe I have captured you for testing purposes, consider this. When I pulled you out of space, between the asbestos, gels and bombs-" GLaDOS was cut off by another voice, much to her annoyance.

"'Ello? Is this on? Brilliant! Didn't mean to interrupt, but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. And... and I just wanted to reiterate that I am truly, incredibly, unendingly sorry for everything I did. If there was a chart that measured how sorry a bloke is, they would need to make a bigger one!" Wheatley had apparently retained his privileges to use the intercom, or more likely GLaDOS forgot to revoke them. "Just, uh, wanted to put that on the table. Now if you'll excuse me I've gotta' get back to working on my master plan. Y'know saving the day and all that." GLaDOS waited a moment to make sure the moron was done speaking, then resumed her speech.

"As I was saying-"

"Oh, I forgot to mention, since the whole facility can hear me now, right? I never apologized to all those turrets that I... well... turned into abominations of nature. Even though they're not natural, they're still abominations of nature. So, to all the, um, 'franken-turrets' out there, I am really sorry about that. I'd pay reparations to you all, if I had money that is. Hey! Had a brainwave, if any of you turrets have money I would gladly accept you giving it to me... so I can give it back to you. How's that soun-"

"There, I cut off his access to the intercoms. He probably doesn't even notice." Chell smiled at the thought of Wheatley continuing to apologize to the turrets without realizing they could no longer hear him. Despite everything, Chell realized she had missed the little personality sphere and his insane chattering immensely.

"Now, when I pulled you back from space, you were little more than a sack of fractured bones and ruptured organs. Had I not pumped your body full of nanobots to repair the damage, you'd have been dead within minutes. In other words, you owe me; and think of this as repaying your debt." If this was GLaDOS trying to convince Chell she wasn't being held prisoner here to test once more, it wasn't working very well. But she had no way of finding out at the moment, and so the only thing Chell could do was keep testing.

Chell entered another chamber and surveyed it for anything that might appear missing. There were two timed-buttons located on ledges on the opposing sides of the room. These tests were supposedly meant to prepare her for facing off against the other AI, but this didn't have any new testing element or challenge other than some proper portal placing. Shrugging, she stepped forward... and a bullet whizzed past her arm, barely missing. Chell dove back into the entrance hallway and peaked out.

"Are you still there?" A turret's voice called out, yet still the room appeared empty besides the two buttons. Turrets could be made invisible too, just great. Chell sighed and activated F-Stop. Now she could see severalcolor inverted turrets positioned throughout the chamber. From there it was a simple task of eliminating the turrets and portaling to the buttons. She completed the test and continued down into the awaiting lift.

"For this next test I will be supplying you with my newest testing apparatus: visibility and invisibility gels." Two gel emitters were to her side, one releasing a flow of purple gel, the other green. To figure out which was which, Chell placed a portal beneath the purple gel flow and another on a wall in front of a storage cube. The purple gel sprayed out and covered the cube, which then vanished. Chell switched the portal below the purple gel with one below the green gel and as this one sprayed out the cube re-appeared. Chell smiled, this was going to be fun...

Two chambers later, Chell came to a room with no portable surfaces, a single invisibility gel emitter, and twenty turrets guarding the exit. She had no means of disabling the turrets, no way of using portals to get past them, then Chell had an idea. It was a crazy idea, one that could easily get her killed, but she didn't see another way to solve the test. Chell walked underneath the spray of invisibility gel and let it coat her.

Slowly, she stepped into the main section of the test chamber. At the sound of her footsteps, the turrets waved their laser sights about in search of the test subject but none could find her. It had worked, she was now invisible. Chell calmly strolled past the turrets, occasionally knocking one over, towards the exit. Once through the door GLaDOS spoke up.

"Hold still." A new dispenser appeared from the ceiling and blasted a torrent of water at her, restoring Chell's visibility. The now visible Chell proceeded into the lift.

"I believe you're ready to face off against the other AI. I've re-routed this lift to take you down into Old Aperture." The elevator hummed to life and began to descend. Chell clutched her portal gun tightly, unaware just what this new AI might throw at her. "Also, if you happen to die down there, please don't until after you've killed it first."


	3. The Descent, Part I

Portal Cubed

Chapter 3: The Descent, Part I

The lift continued its downward trek, the white, sterilized walls of modern Aperture slowly giving way to the wooden and plaster appearance of times long past. Suddenly the elevator shuttered and ground to a halt.

"Hold on, it seems we've reached a section of the facility under _its_ control. It's trying to stop the lift." Chell looked around while GLaDOS tried to get the elevator working again. Through the glass walls of the lift, Chell could see some decaying office rooms and, oddly, some management rails. She didn't remember seeing any in her first trip to Old Aperture. Then again, these areas seemed to be more recent than those she'd seen before as well. A voice rang out from within the office room before her.

"_Taking care of busi-ness!_" Wheatley sang as he moved past Chell on one of the management rails. He had somehow managed to hook a turret's front legs onto his lower handle, and was carrying the horrified turret to parts unknown. "Oh, hey!" Wheatley turned and waved his non-turret holding handle in a wave. "Don't mind me, I'm just gathering components for my master plan. I'm really proud of this one. Completely foolproof. Not that it would need to be of course, since I'm not a fool, or a moron."

"I'm going to die!" The turret cried out, its laser-sight whipping around wildly. Wheatley glared at the turret hanging from him.

"Shut up! Now if you excuse me, I've gotta' get back to work." Wheatley sped off, the turret rocking back and forth as it struggled to hang on to its personality core abductor.

"Things are not what they seem, and your trust is in the wrong person. Be prepared." The turret said before it and Wheatley disappeared behind a wall. Chell frowned, that turret sounded familiar... Then again all the turrets had the same voice, but still. There was something about _that_ turret. She thought back to the one she'd saved from the redemption line, and how it had spouted random mythological references which turned out to be surprisingly predictive of her future. Chell had left that turret on a walkway, not wanting to "emancipate" it, but could it really have the same one?

If it really was the "oracle" turret, then things had just gotten complicated. Who was she trusting that was wrong? Wheatley? No, he seemed genuinely sorry, and he was far too stupid to be subtle. If Wheatley was planning to betray her it would be painfully obvious. GLaDOS? The turret said someone she trusted, and Chell still didn't entirely trust the AI. Could it be someone else, someone she hadn't even met yet? Then again it might not even be the same turret. Chell shook her head, this place was getting to her. She should just focus on stopping the other AI and getting out of here.

"Alright, I've gotten through the firewalls it set up. Get ready." The elevator lurched downward and began to descend once more. Finally it came to a halt at a room about twenty feet below. "My influence only extends to this lift. You'll be on your own out there. Good luck." Chell stepped out of the lift and surveyed the surrounding environment. It appeared to be a lobby of sorts, with a large "Aperture Science Innovators" logo on the wall, a several waiting chairs and a reception desk. She tentatively stepped up to the desk and saw a decaying newspaper on it. Chell scanned the paper and saw that it was dated March 3, 1985. This _was_ a newer section of the old facility than she'd been to before.

Chell continued forward, holding the portal gun out in front of her. It might have been the knowledge that there was a dangerous artificial intelligence somewhere in here, or just the eerie nature of the place, but either way Chell's nerves were on edge. She proceeded through a doorway by the reception desk and entered into a hall with several doors. At the end of the hall was a large oil-painting of an old and extremely sick looking man. A light shone down on the picture, the only one that seemed to be working in the area. Chell approached it and stared at the man. A plaque on the painting's frame said "Our Founder, 1912-1985" and nothing else.

The nearest door creaked open, causing Chell to jump in shock. She held the portal gun out like a weapon and stared into the room, but it was too dark to see anything inside. Chell walked in, glancing back and forth in search of whatever had opened the door but saw nothing. A light flashed on and Chell aimed the portal gun at it, only to see it was an ancient computer. It was covered in cobwebs, and Chell could scarcely believe it was working after all these years. She set the portal gun down and wiped the cobwebs away from the computer screen. On it was what appeared to be some sort of electronic memo. She felt around and located a chair about a foot away and pulled it forward to sit down. Once seated, she began to read what was on the screen.

- BEGIN RECORD 'C:\02622005.965\06615262.757' (863 BYTES) -

MEMORANDUMS: Filed under CJohnson: 1085839-G

This one's important, folks, so no skimmin'. Cave Johnson here, your boss and founder of Aperture Science?the best damn applied sciences company on Earth. How good is the science here? Get a load a? this: as of this morning, I am dead!

Now, yer probably askin? yourself, "Cave, come on now, how is this possible? Are you some manner of Dracula? Or Frankenstein? Or dependin? on yer cultural heritage, a Blackula or Latin Frankenstein?"gh632jj3

ksjdo sir! It's science. Thanks to our diligent Aperture engineers, I am writin' memos to you today, literally, from beyond the grave! Furthermore I'd l#ke t5o inf))))m 34verybody wePPPPPing a blue shi%%$rt today th32232t y*u ##re f)*# TF FFs0&^t ##f gd fghDFRt 665 ^ $%& 4%^^$. ZSFGS D FGsd5 E$ 5^57&W$% &6&778*$ 4^77 r6ty u$65#################3

- RECORD ENDS -

Chell leaned away from the computer screen. That was... interesting... to say the least. From the recordings he'd left behind, Chell was firmly convinced that Cave Johnson was even more insane than GLaDOS. The computer screen flickered, then died. She didn't know what all those bizarre characters meant, maybe he died - for real - while writing it?

Before she could ponder the message further a crash resounded from the wall, followed by a beam of light shining out. From the light Chell could just make out that it was coming from a the optic of a personality core.

"Why hello there, little lady-" The sphere began making awful hacking coughs while sparks shot from its body. Unlike the ones she'd seen, this personality core seemed to be much cruder in design. It was made from several metal plates haphazardly welded together, and it was covered in rust. It's golden optic was cracked in several places and its handles hung limply, barely attached at all. The core finally stopped its 'coughing' and turned to Chell.

"Sorry, where're my manners? I'm the Aperture Science Prototype Artificial Intelligence Construct. The _first_ AI Aperture ever built. But my friends call me Gramps." The core's optic lulled and his chassis shot out several more sparks. "If those newfangled testin' bots hadn't showed up I'd have been stuck offline forever! You a friend of theirs?" Wait, _this_ was the other AI? _This_ was what GLaDOS was afraid of? Chell nearly broke down in laughter. _Wheatley_ was more threatening than this guy. What could he possibly do, rust at her?

"But enough chitchat. This boss says I have to take all test subjects to the testin' track right up ahead. Follow me, miss." Boss? That made more sense. Chell picked the portal gun back up and followed Gramps through the hole he'd created in the wall.

"The boss can be a bit strict at times, but he's got a good motherboard on his hard-drive." As Chell walked behind the ancient personality core, lights began to flicker on throughout the area. It became clear they were on a catwalk of some sort, with what looked like one of Aperture's old enrichment spheres ahead. As they approached, Gramps continued to spark every few minutes, with his 'episodes' increasing in severity and length.

They reached a lift with the enrichment sphere looming above. "Well here's where ya' go. Boss' only got that one working so far but he's got some biiiiig plans fer this plaa-a-a-a-a-a-" Gramps exploded mid sentence, chunks of burning personality core shooting out in a shower of destruction. Chell held the portal gun over her head in hopes of deflecting the shrapnel.

Once burning metal had stopped raining down, Chell stepped into the lift and pressed the button labeled "up". The elevator shuddered and slowly began to ascend into the enrichment sphere. The lift halted, and Chell stepped out into a test chamber.

It was old, with chunks of the floor missing and some derelict mobility gel emitters hanging from the ceiling. An old-fashioned storage cube sat next to one of the floor gaps, with a button on the other side. Chell fired a portal on the floor next to the cube, and another on the wall by the button. She picked put the cube, stepped through, then placed it on button. The door slid open, but before Chell could go through a voice rang out.

"Greetings new test subject! You should know me by now, but if you don't, I'm Cave Johnson: CEO and founder of Aperture Science. Wow... it's been awhile since I've said that." Something sounded off about this recording. Chell couldn't quite place her finger on it, but it seemed... different... somehow. "Now quit standin' there and get in the lift! We've got science to do, kiddo." That was odd. How did the recording know what Chell was doing? Perhaps it was programmed to play if the test subject spent too much time in the chamber?

Chell quickly proceeded to the lift and into the next test chamber, eager to find out who this "boss" was and stop him. The next chamber had a large hole to the left, and some sort of cage positioned near the exit.

"The lab boys would probably be tellin' me to remind you that this test contains bloodthirsty genetic mutants that want nothing more than to tear you to shreds. But guess what! The lab boys are all dead now, so forget that nonsense." The cage opened and a creature unlike any Chell had ever seen stepped out. It had the vague shape of a man, but had a green, chitinous exoskeleton and an insectoid head. Its arms and legs were segmented, with the hands replaced by scythe-like claws. The creature turned towards Chell, its antennae twitching madly, then it charged.

She just barely dodged the creature as its scythe-arms swung through the air. It roared in frustration and prepared to attack again, but Chell though fast and fired a portal on the floor in front of her. She quickly shot another at the ceiling directly above the pit. Just as the creature prepared for another attack it fell into the portal and was sent hurtling to its death.

"Well I better get somebody to clean yer remains off the floor- wait, yer still alive? Wow. I haven't seen anyone test that good even _before_ they uploaded me. You got moxie, kiddo." Chell gulped. These weren't recordings. The other AI _was_Cave Johnson.


	4. The Descent, Part II

Portal Cubed

Chapter 4: The Descent, Part II

To say that the revelation of the "other AI's" identity shocked Chell and filled her with despair would be an understatement. This was the man who thought forcing his secretary into a robot body against her will was a _nice thing to do_, and now she was completely at his mercy. Chell felt certain that if in the next five minutes she still had all her organs, she'd be a very lucky woman.

"Whelp, enough chattin'. I dunno' how long I've been offline, but it's been long enough. Let's do some science!" Seeing no other option, Chell walked over to the lift and braced herself for whatever the next chamber might hold.

"Y'know, when I first made these mantis-men I thought I'd have to kill 'em all. But it turns out as long as I play this specific radio frequency, beyond a normal human's hearing range, they'll do whatever I say. Like in this here test; I just sent a frequency that says you're a fertile mantis-woman and now they're all gonna' clamber up to you and try to implant eggs in yer chest cavity."

"There are two potential things we're testin' for here. One, if you kill 'em we're testin' for weakness in their combat potential. If you fail, _then_ we're testin' cross-fertility rates and human/mantis-human genetics. So it's a win/win situation for science, not so much for yer chest cavity. But I'm sure you'll make science proud either way. Good luck!" Chell gulped audibly, the only sound she could remember making... ever, come to think of it. A wall panel raised up, and two mantis-men climbed out.

They immediately turned their attention to Chell, and charged forward. She quickly fired a portal to the other side of the room, and one beneath her just as the mantis-men arrived. The mantis-men were left with thin air and Chell was deposited safely at the opposite end of the chamber, giving her a few moments to think of how to deal with the creatures.

Before she could come up with anything the room lurched to the left with a deep groaning sound. The mantis-men pitched over and scuttled about, their scythe-like arms making righting themselves quite a challenge. Another tremor struck the chamber and the northwest corner of the ceiling collapsed with repulsion gel spilling in after it.

"Sorry 'bout that. I'm havin' some technical difficulties up-linking with the rest of the facility. Just keep on testin'." Chell now had an excellent means to take care of the mantis-men at her disposal, so she certainly would 'keep on testing'. She shot a portal underneath the new spray of gel and another on the wall facing the mantis-men. Repulsion gel flew out to coat the mantis men, which sent them flying across the room, bouncing off every surface. It looked as though they would stay in constant motion forever, though Chell had no plans of waiting around to find out.

"Hmm, adaptive. I like that in a test subject. Now, you may be wonderin' about the ethics of all this killin' mantis-men, but don't worry yer pretty little head. I've been talkin' with Betty, our 'legalese' expert, and she assures me that mantis-man aren't people. So as long as it's for science, it's perfectly fine to kill them in exceedingly gruesome ways." Chell could hardly care whether or not the mantis-men were legally considered people or not. In her book, person or not, attempting to implant eggs in someone's chest cavity was grounds enough for death by repulsion gel. Now that the way was clear, Chell continued onward to the lift and whatever test of questionable scientific value Cave had prepared for her next.

Once inside, the lift began to descend as per-normal. Suddenly it jolted to a halt which sent Chell to her feet. The lift then shot up rapidly, then went down again, and repeated this action several times, leaving Chell feeling like fizz in an overly shaken soda bottle. Finally the lift stopped as suddenly as it had begun, with an exhausted panting resonating from the intercoms.

"Damn it, Caroline! I'm tryin' to help you!" Cave roared while Chell shakily stood back up and grabbed her portal gun. "She's the one who sent you down here in the first place, isn't she?" Chell considered nodding, but felt that it was probably a pointless endeavor. If Cave Johnson believed she was sent here by Caroline, nothing was going to change that. "She probably thinks I'm crazy. Tryin' to take over the surface with a robot army or somethin' like that."

"Listen, kiddo. This is all a big misunderstandin'. Caroline and I were supposed to run this place together, doin' science for all eternity. But those no-good backstabbin' lab-boys shut me down! Said I was 'corrupted' and 'too dangerous keep online'. What a load a' bull. DO I SOUND CORRUPTED TO YOU?" The elevator dropped several feet before halting again.

"Sorry, got a little carried away. I've been tryin' to explain all this Caroline, but she won't listen! I'm startin' to think that she can't even hear me. That the lab-boys did somethin' to my connection with the upper levels of the facility." The lift's door opened and Chell peaked out, feeling that it probably lead to a bottomless bit or a solid wall rather than her destination. To her surprise it had indeed stopped at an actual exit, but not a not a test chamber.

Outside the elevator was a decaying hallway, lined with dead plants and various paintings. Most of which were of Cave Johnson, a few had Caroline posed with him, and one had them standing side by side with Caroline holding something roughly infant-sized in her arms, but it was obscured by dust and grime. A small plaque under the picture said "Our Greatest Creation". She walked up to this particular painting and brushed away the obscuring filth. Chell could now see that Caroline was holding... a bundle of shower curtains emblazoned with the Aperture Science logo.

"Excuse me." Chell jumped at the unfamiliar voice, she looked from side to side and saw nothing however. "Down here." The voice said, rather annoyed. Chell looked down and saw a what appeared to be a personality core mounted on a wheeled, tripod like base. It had a maroon optic that was staring at her with an almost contempt-filled glare.

"I _know _what you're thinking. Just because I don't have a management rail like the other spheres does not mean in anyway way, shape, or form that I am inferior to them. I am the Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disc Operating System, though I am also programmed to respond to the name 'Betty'." The wheeled core stared at Chell, waiting for her to respond. "Ah-hem." Chell remained silent, as always. Betty sighed an swiveled around on her tripod base.

"Follow me, Mr. Johnson is expecting you in his office." The Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disc Operating System sped off and Chell was forced to jog to keep up with it. The test subject and personality core continued down the hallway, halting at a set of gilded doors. Betty backed up, then rammed herself at the doors several times. On the fifth attempt the doors shot open and Betty disappeared into the gloom behind it. A loud crash rang out.

"You may enter..." Betty feebly stated, and Chell complied. She saw that Betty had crashed into what appeared to be an ancient bee-keeping box. Any bees inside were long dead, and the core lay on its side, futilely trying to get back up. Chell took pity and picked Betty up with the portal gun's tractor beam and set her back down. "Thanks." Betty responded, though her optic was drooping and it seemed she may have received more damage than was readily apparent.

Chell was unable to pay any more attention to the strange core though, as the room lit up brightly. She could now see it was an office, decorated with "Second Place Science" awards, shower curtains, and more long-unused beekeeping equipment. In the center of the room, where one would expect a desk to sit, was instead a massive, dangling hunk of metal and wires with a crudely designed brown-opticed personality core at its end. The massive contraption turned to face Chell.

"Yer pretty good at science. Adaptive, brave, disturbingly hard to kill... You remind me a lot of myself!" Cave explained while swaying back and forth in his prototype chassis. "While you were testin' , I was thinkin': 'Cave, what's goin' on? Why isn't Caroline listenin' to me and sendin' test subjects down here for who knows what reason?' Well I figured it out. In one last slight against me, the lab-boys severed my connection to the upper enrichment center. Now If I could just find a way to reconnect myself I could talk some sense into Caroline." Chell was starting to get an idea of what Cave was thinking, and it seemed he realized to. "Yep, together we can get this whole mess sorted out. You just gotta' do a couple little errands. For science."


	5. The Patriarch, Part I

Portal Cubed

The Patriarch, Part I

Chell stared up at the shoddy prototype chassis which held the mind of Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture Science. Cave leaned forward as if to whisper at Chell, but ended talking in the same boisterous voice as normal.

"Turns out, to reconnect myself with the rest of the facility, all we need to do is re-plug in three fiber optic cables. Then I'll just explain things to Caroline and everyone'll get what they want. Say kiddo, what _do_ you want? What're yer stakes in this?" It was another time Chell mentally cursed herself for not speaking, but for some reason she just could not get the words to form. Whether it was a lack of vocal cords like Wheatley seemed to think, a mental issue, or something else entirely was irrelevant.

"Strong and silent type, eh? Ah, you're the kind of fella' who likes to get the job done! No nonsense." Cave said. The office began to shake ominously and Chell tightened her grip on the portal gun. "I could just reprogram the elevator to take where you need to go, but I am scientist. And a real scientist doesn't use some pre-existing transportation, he makes his own!"

A large pipe with a large hole in it crashed through the office's wall. The inside of the pipe was coated orange from propulsion gel, but otherwise appeared to be empty.

"Go on in! The propulsion gel won't bite, it'll slowly dissolve yer skeleton, but it won't bite." Chell took a deep breath, held the portal gun out in front of her, and ran into the gel pipe. Just as expected the propulsion gel coating caused Chell to speed through the tube at an increasingly breakneck pace.

Chell felt something collide with her boots and turned around to investigate. To her surprise, the object was Betty.

"As Aperture Science's Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disk Operating System, it is necessary for me to warn you that any injuries you can and will receive during this errand are not the responsibility of Aperture Science Innovators and thus no monetary assistance can, or will, be provided." As Betty listed off further legal jargon another hole in the pipe appeared, and the test subject and personality core plummeted through it.

Thanks to her longfall boots, Chell landed safely, if rather roughly on the floor below. Betty instead landed on her optic, which shattered with a loud _crunch_. Chell again took pitty on the sphere and set Betty back on her tripod-wheels.

"Great, now I'm blind. I swear Mr. Johnson does not pay me enough for this. Then again he doesn't pay me at all..." Chell's graciousness was now expended, so she set off to find the three cables and end this.

"Hey! Are you going somewhere? Wait for me!" Betty said and rolled off after Chell.

It seemed that the pipe had deposited the two in a hallway lined with doors. Chell methodically checked each room, finding plenty of old computers, personnel files and whiteboards with unintelligible equations scribbled across them. In other words, nothing of value to her mission.

After searching every room but one, Chell pulled open the final door and stared out into nothingness. Whatever room _had_ been there before was replaced by an empty void. The floor extended about a foot past the door before splintering into rough shards. She glanced back and forth through the void and spied another series of offices like this one on the far side of the gap, with only precariously perched metal stilts holding it up.

With no other choice, Chell fired a portal onto the wall next to the door-to-oblivion and another towards the distant office complex. She stepped through the portal, and walked out and onto a narrow ledge. To her left was a door, presumably leading into the offices. But before Chell could attempt to reach the door something pushed her.

"Where're we going? Are you stuck or something?" Betty complained while ramming herself into Chell's boots to get the test subject to move. Chell looked down and immediately regretted it. Not even the longfall boots would protect her from a fall _that _severe. Well, knowing Aperture there actually was a good chance they would, but Chell was in no mood to find out.

Betty continued to back up and the charge at Chell, finally causing the test-subject to teeter forward and plummet into the abyss. Wind whipped through Chell's hair and she tried to close her eyes so as not to see the splat which was sure to follow. However she could not bring herself to; some sick fascination in her wanted to see the imminent collision.

Soon the floor became visible, and to Chell's incredible luck, a leaky conversion gel pipe had transformed the floor into a portal-able surface. Thinking quickly, she fired a blue portal below her and an orange one next to it. This was either going to be an extremely awesome display of acrobatics and momentum which would save Chell's life, or a extremely stupid idea which would reduce her to stain on the ceiling.

Chell fell through the blue portal and was sent hurtling upwards through its orange counterpart. Within moments she had passed the office complex. Now for part two of her plan. Chell tucked her legs in and tried to summersault forward. If she could just move a few feet...

Her upward momentum ran out, and Chell began to fall down. It was now or never. To her great relief, she was headed towards the ceiling of the office complex. Not so much to her relief, the roof was made of cheap drywall and she crashed through it before finally coming to a stop inside the room.

"AAAAAAHHH!" Betty screamed as she plummeted through the new roof-hole before miraculously landing on her tripod. It appeared that in the near-death excitement Chell had missed Betty rolling into the abyss as well. "I'm blind. I think I fell down something. This is the worst. day. ever!"

Chell rolled her eyes at Betty, having been sent hurtling to her almost-death had significantly reduced Chell's sympathy towards the personality sphere, and resumed her search for the cables Cave Johnson needed plugged in.

"Hey, are you there? My sensors say that yer close to the first cable. Should be on the other side of the room." Cave said over a seemingly hidden PA system. Chell looked around the room and saw several old computers, what looked like a stack of hard drives, and a whiteboard listing various crossed out release dates for "EP III". Based on the crosses, it seems whatever this project was, Aperture had never completed it.

But there was no sign of any cable, or outlet for that matter. Betty was rolling around in increasingly larger circles before she finally crashed into one of the old computer modems. It fell to side, showing an oversized electrical outlet, and an equally oversized plug. The cable snaked into the wall and likely lead all the way back to Cave's chassis.

Chell picked up the plug with the portal device's tractor beam and shoved it into the outlet. A loud humming began to emanate from the outlet and the ceiling lights began to brighten.

"Wh-oa! Now that's what I'm talkin' about! So much processin' power, I feel like my IQ went up a hundred points!" The lights slowly dimmed back to their normal brightness as Cave became used to the extra computing power. "And to think at Black Mesa you'd need to be an MIT graduate to be qualified to plug stuff in. You sure showed them. Unless yer actually an MIT graduate. Aw, who am I kiddin'? Yer probably from a gutter or orphanage or somethin'. That's where all the best test subjects come from; no familiar attachments, eager to please their superiors... You orphans are the real heroes of science."

"All right, that's enough gabbin'. Go get those other cables, champ!" Chell walked over to a door, hopefully not the one leading to the ledge and abyss from earlier, and opened it. On the other side was a room filled with rows upon rows of filing cabinets and little else. It was clear the second cable would not be here. Besides, that would be far too easy.

Chell stepped around several toppled file cabinets, paying little attention to the papers strewn about below her. An old computer was flashing next to her, apparently having been turned on by the power surge when the first cable was plugged in. On the screen was another memo, and a document about test subjects. While time seemed to be the essence, Chell couldn't resist perusing them. Her entire remembered life had revolved around Aperture Science. Perhaps these documents could shed light on her own past?

She looked at the memo first. It was severely corrupted and full of random data strings, but she could still make out the gist of it.

- BEGIN RECORD 'C:\09394469.756\07583916.313' (371 BYTES) -

MEMORANDUMS: Filed under CJohnson: 188454-G

&&^521762 jsow remind you that Aperture Science is built on three pillars. Pillar one: Science without results is just witchcraft. Pill two: Get results or you're fired. Pillar three: if you suspect a coworker of bein' a witch, report them immediately. I cannot stress that enough. Witchcraft will not be tolerated.

- RECORD ENDS -

There wasn't much to be gleamed from the memo, besides the fact that Cave Johnson _really _hated witches. Chell wondered if that was just his insanity, or if Aperture had actual witches running around somewhere... Brushing all thoughts of witchcraft away, she looked to the next document. This one was older, and lacked the corruption and spelling errors of its companions.

- BEGIN RECORD 'C:\05083881.801\04186850.542' (1751 BYTES) -

CONFIDENTIAL

October 17th, 1976

Re: Human Enrichment & Testing Initiative, Resource Acquisitions

1. "Low Risk" Human Resource Acquisitions

a. Hoboes and Tramps

Lives spent wandering aimlessly, cowering before authority, and drinking concussive amounts of home-distilled potato alcohol make hoboes the perfect Human Enrichment test subjects. The hobo questions nothing, will follow orders if fed, and, like all hoboes, has a restless, wandering heart. (Note: The wandering heart of the hobo should not be confused with Drifting Heart Syndrome, which several transients contracted during testing.)

b. Child Orphans and Foundlings

Deep-rooted abandonment issues leave most orphans highly susceptible to shame-based psychology (for a complete list of opportune moments to obliterate the esteem of test subjects, please consult Training Video #89-D, "You'd Perform This Test Better if You Had Parents"). Recent advances in the use of scorn, flattery use in an ironic context and naked contempt as motivational tools have yielded similarly profitable results.

c. Psychiatric Patients

Past experience shows these fellows are simply not shy at all about carrying on, disrupting tests and defecating just about anywhere that pleases them. Frankly, it's off-putting, and small wonder why Aperture-brand mental institutions are being phased out in favor of more orphanages.

d. Seniors

Frail, brittle hands make holding science devices difficult. Most were born before the advent of science, and can become confused and disoriented when asked to participate in relatively simple tests (teleportation, invisibility, adjusting esteem levels of orphan children).

- RECORD ENDS -

Aside from explaining why GLaDOS loved to harp about Chell's alleged lack of parents so much, and showing that Cave Johnson was a complete lunatic (nothing new there), the document provided little in the way of information useful to Chell.

Betty rolled in and hit a filling cabinet, causing it to fall over and hit the next one, resulting in a chain reaction of falling cabinets like a row of dominoes.

"What was that? Somethin' break? Eh, it doesn't matter. I won't need any of this old junk once I'm uplinked with the new enrichment center." Cave asked. Chell of course did not answer and Betty just stood still, groaning in pain from the severe... head? trauma she had sustained in the past few hours.

"By the way, I forgot to mention how nice it is having someone to talk to besides Betty and that prototype guy. Sure they're good employees, but they've got more _artificial_ than _intelligence_ if ya' know what I mean..." Cave chuckled to himself.

"I can still hear you, sir."

"Betty! Yer still alive?"

* * *

><p>I feel it might be poignant to mention that all these memos are <em>real. <em>They were released during the two Portal 2 ARGs. That means there is a good chance Cave's uploading may be canon...


End file.
